WARREN ELLIS is a graphic novelist, writer, public speaker and author of the NYT best-selling novel GUN MACHINE.

Cover Remodel: THE YELLOW BOOK

Published June 8, 2010 by Warren Ellis

Every week or two I challenge the artists on my message board to reinvent a cover or character from the past. Usually comics-based. Lately I’ve been throwing them some weird ones. Like this:

The Yellow Book, published in London from 1894 to 1897, was a quarterly literary periodical (priced at 5s.) that lent its name to the "Yellow" 1890s. It was a leading journal of the British 1890s; to some degree associated with Aestheticism and Decadence, the magazine contained a wide range of literary and artistic genres, poetry, short stories, essays, book illustrations, portraits, and reproductions of paintings. Aubrey Beardsley was its first art editor, and he has been credited with the idea of the yellow cover, with its association with French fiction of the period.

So here’s the deal: You are an artist/designer. You have to put together the cover for VOLUME 14 of THE YELLOW BOOK. It must retain the sense of Aestheticism and Decadence, and yet be of its time.

Here’s a small selection of what I got in return. All of the rest are at the link above, and worth seeing.

You’re surprised to find what I did on Ellis’ site? That’s like being surprised finding money at the bank.
Thanks for all the horrified praise; I do what I can to make an impact. I personally dug the entries that managed to maintain class AND show the goods.

Obviously this is an extreme case, but honestly, I worked hard to make this one as well-thought out from a design and type perspective. Some of my favorite design work has shocked the hell out of me, and I’ve seen that as a positive thing. Warren’s assignments have given me a chance to do some things that have propelled me in front of folks who I never would have had the chance to work with; that’s a good thing.

I didn’t say it was bad, but the goatse aspect is a Do Not Want thing for most people. Especially in the conservative eBook world. (I get grief just because I use the word “fuck” around them. And I’m not talking sex, either.)